Vae on 20/6/2013 at 23:36
Quote Posted by Chade
Vae, the distinction you are trying to draw is meaningless. The only meaningful thing is the list of possibilities and their pros and cons.
Chade, it only appears meaningless to you because you do not see your error...
For the "list" only presents methods with varying levels of challenge, not reward.Chade on 20/6/2013 at 23:48
I know what distinction you're trying to draw, Vae. It's meaningless. We're discussing the parts of the game that encourage players to choose one action over another.
Trying to draw a line through these aspects of the game and labeling some as "rewards" and others as "challenges" or whatever else you feel like is thoroughly irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Starker on 21/6/2013 at 03:07
Quote Posted by Chade
Fire arrows and crushing chandeliers have nothing to do with the topic at hand though ...
And that is where you fail to understand me. I'm not arguing against violence at all. In fact, non-violence without the option of violence would be entirely meaningless. What I'm arguing against is the over the top violence. Don't you see how encouraging the sniping of NPC's can be dehumanising? LGS worked very hard to make the guards more than just moving targets.
The fundamental disagreement that I have with this is not "OMG you can do violence in a Thief game now and it's <s>retarded</s> rewarded!". It's rather that the over the top violence is too gamey for this game and it ruins the believability of the Thief setting.
That whole immersion thing that I'm championing for is very much tied to the simulation part of what LGS was trying to accomplish. The issue for me is not much different from the ability to shoot rope arrows in any wooden surface.
On the subject of suspension of disbelief, secondary belief and immersion (the relevant part is in the first 6 minutes): (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZUynhkal1I) TUN: The Elder Scrolls VI - Youtubia. It's a good video and it also helps explain why Thief taking inspiration from multiple places and periods works so well.
SneakyJack on 21/6/2013 at 03:59
Quote Posted by fett
What ever happened to just playing the game and having fun? I played through the first two without a walkthrough but I swear to gods I haven't played a single FM in years that I didn't have to keep alt/tabbing out to check a walkthrough.
This is a sad but true trend that I noticed myself toward the tail end of playing fan missions for reviews. As they got more and more complicated with longer more ridiculous puzzles with obscure solutions (not to mention the trend for a while where every FM had to have a frustrating jumping puzzle section in an engine that is garbage for jumping puzzles) I found myself having less and less fun with the missions. Then one would come along that looked great while sticking to the core gameplay of what made Thief fun without a pile of gimmicks and custom systems thrown in and I'd fall for the game all over again. Somewhere along the way mission authors start worrying more about how many bells and whistles they can cram into a really old engine and they forget that the gameplay needs to be fun as well.
And to bring this tangent back to the original topic I think many developers are guilty of this as well. The only reason hearing about focus bothered me was that gameplay might suffer because of it and it might be a crutch for a developer to be lazy about gameplay sections. If the gameplay is solid underneath and then they add focus as a way to give people even more choices in the situation then great. Obviously focus isn't going to be mandatory because of how short the supply of it is and that's even better.
I'll just be glad that in the new game when I do choose to solve a situation with an arrow headshot instead of the blackjack it will most likely cause a locational damage kill instead of a guard acting like I just shot him in the shin with it instead.
Chade on 21/6/2013 at 11:46
Quote Posted by Starker
The fundamental disagreement that I have with this is not "OMG you can do violence in a Thief game now and it's <s>retarded</s> rewarded!". It's rather that the over the top violence is too gamey for this game and it ruins the believability of the Thief setting..
Starker, I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing. Which aspect of thief 4's headshots do you consider over the top? Is it:
a) having shots to the head do more damage then shots to the body,
b) the popup saying "headshot", or
c) something else.
Starker on 21/6/2013 at 14:32
Quote Posted by Chade
Starker, I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing. Which aspect of thief 4's headshots do you consider over the top? Is it:
a) having shots to the head do more damage then shots to the body,
b) the popup saying "headshot", or
c) something else.
The popup saying "Headshot!" and it giving you XP.
I would not be against certain parts of the body taking more damage, but I would also like guards to try and protect these parts as they would in real life. That means wearing helmets and mail.
Also, if it were up to me, I would not make headshots guaranteed instakills. There would be a chance of the guard shouting out. Balanced against game difficulty, of course.
heywood on 21/6/2013 at 18:17
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
A more significant change is that there are XP points at all. Looking Glass had done a bunch of games that were basically tabletop RPGs transferred to computer with simulation instead of dice. Thief was an attempt at a game that kept the simulation while intentionally hiding the stats and doing all that number crunching malarkey behind the scenes - making for a game that was more natural for want of a better phrase. The return of XP is a 180 degree about face of that ambition.
Quote Posted by Vivian
Also, crucial question I haven't seen answered except in some kind of handy-wavy way, what exactly is this XP
for?
Quote Posted by Vae
:laff:...I'm afraid you are the one who has absolutely nothing...
For there is no "XP" in the core design of a THIEF game.Agree with the above. Garrett should not be an upgradeable DX-style übermensch. If Garrett is going to acquire additional abilities during the game, they should be very few and they should be woven into the story.
I think XP should be reserved for character building in RPGs. But even in an RPG, I don't like awarding XP based on
how the player accomplishes the mission. It encourages players to stick with a specific playstyle and abuse the stat system to maximize XP, rather than trying different approaches and finding a playstyle that makes the game most fun & immersive. For example, the XP bonuses for takedowns & hacking ruined the game balance for some DX:HR players who were predisposed to XP whoring. If Thief 4 gives maximum XP for blackjacking, then you'll have a lot of people going through the game blackjacking everybody they can. In previous Thief games, you could play that way if you want to but the game wasn't encouraging it.
Fandango on 21/6/2013 at 18:21
Quote Posted by Starker
Don't you see how encouraging the sniping of NPC's can be dehumanising? LGS worked very hard to make the guards more than just moving targets.
They were still interchangeable and re-used.
I might feel bad about headshotting Benny, the well-intentioned dimwit with a heart of gold, but he comes back in the next level anyways. There might even be another Benny standing on the other side of the room.
Chade on 23/6/2013 at 11:33
Quote Posted by Starker
The popup saying "Headshot!" and it giving you XP ... Also, if it were up to me, I would not make headshots guaranteed instakills. There would be a chance of the guard shouting out.
As I mentioned earlier, I do believe there is a certain "feel good" element to the new system. I'm claiming that will wear off over time while the actual real XP considerations will become more important. I don't think it's really comparable to the falling chandeliers etc. We're talking different magnitudes of gratituous feedback here.
The guards already are noiser on an instakill arrow shot (compared to blackjack). I don't think you need to make some random gameplay device on top of that. Sniping guards
safely is a perfectly valid mid-level skill, which the player should be able to incorporate into their plans and rely on the game behaving in a certain way. Player agency and all that.
Starker on 23/6/2013 at 11:59
Quote Posted by Chade
I don't think it's really comparable to the falling chandeliers etc. We're talking different magnitudes of gratituous feedback here.
The question is, will players shoot guards in the head because they think it would do more damage or because they know they'll get more XP that way. Which one is more immersive? From where I'm standing, it's guiding people down a path not unlike chandeliers, oil patches and rope arrow shoot points.
Quote Posted by Chade
The guards already are noiser on an instakill arrow shot (compared to blackjack). I don't think you need to make some random gameplay device on top of that. Sniping guards
safely is a perfectly valid mid-level skill, which the player should be able to incorporate into their plans and rely on the game behaving in a certain way. Player agency and all that.
There is already a similar gameplay device in place in the old games where guards will try to run away when they take enough damage. It would make sense that they would try to raise alarm as well.
On easy level, sure, sniping would be a more or less reliable tactic. Starting from hard, though, combat should be a risk each time.
